When Destination Enters the Journey

Monday, March 23, 2020

In the beginning the Word already existed.  The Word was with God, and the Word was God.  John 1:1

So the Word became human and made his home among us.  He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.  And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.  John 1:14

Genesis tells us that when humans sinned in the Garden of Eden it broke the fellowship between man and God.  But it also broke the intended destination of mankind.  We are created for relationship and residence in our ultimate destination, the presence of God.  We are His family.

Jesus had that.  As the Word, Jesus was with God.  Jesus was always at the Father’s side in unbroken fellowship since before time began.  But it was interrupted by the cross of Calvary.  He came to dwell among us and die for us.  Fellowship with God was our intended destination.  When sin shut down man’s journey, Jesus came to enter and walk the journey with us. 

The Bible tells us that Jesus promised that:

“I will never fail you.  I will never abandon you.”.  Hebrews 13.5b

Before September 2001 many Americans felt safe, like our borders were largely impenetrable.  Nowadays the word terrorist is a daily part of our vocabulary; it is an uncertain and anarchy-prone, tumultuous world in which we live. Our children walk their journey somewhat nervous and cynical about the future. 

And, who doesn’t get even a little concerned, (or full-blown manic) about the novel coronavirus, Covid-19?  I went into a store last week and intentionally stuck my left hand in my pocket, so I’d only use my right hand to touch things.  I did everything one-handed, and when I got back to my car, I used the left hand to drench/cleanse my right hand with sanitizer. 

Life is different than it used to be…and isn’t that the nature of a journey into the future?

Jesus came to walk this valley journey with us.  He is the destination for which our souls were created, and that for which we crave.  But Jesus does not make us wait to get there – Jesus, our destination, has entered the journey to run the race with us.  What a joy!

For You Today

The main issue here is one of faithfulness.  Jesus is eternal, and yet he walks this temporary journey with us.  When He says, I’ll never abandon you, He isn’t just talking about this week, or as long as you do everything right.  This is an eternal commitment from Jesus to each of us who follow Him. 

How comforting is that thought!  It’s good to know you have something you can count on during this difficult and uncertain journey we call life. 

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on John 1 see Catch  or  And the Word Became Flesh

The Voice of God

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Friday, May 25, 2018

Honor the Lord, you heavenly beings; honor the Lord for his glory and strength.  Honor the Lord for the glory of his name.  Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.  The voice of the Lord echoes above the sea.  The God of glory thunders.  The Lord thunders over the mighty sea.  The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic.  The voice of the Lord splits the mighty cedars; the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.  He makes Lebanon’s mountains skip like a calf; he makes Mount Hermon leap like a young wild ox.  The voice of the Lord strikes with bolts of lightning.  The voice of the Lord makes the barren wilderness quake; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.  The voice of the Lord twists mighty oaks and strips the forests bare.  In his Temple everyone shouts, “Glory!”  The Lord rules over the floodwaters.  The Lord reigns as king forever.  The Lord gives his people strength.  The Lord blesses them with peace.  Psalm 29:1-11^NLT)

The Psalmist describes the voice of God as mighty and cataclysmic – something not to be denied or ignored.  His voice echoes above the sea, splits gigantic cedars, shakes the mountains as if they’re dancing in reply, sends lightning flashes, and stirs quakes in the quiet wilderness, making everything shout-out the glory of God.

After all that imagery the poet peels back the façade of storms and natural disaster to reveal the majestic Lord reigning as king forever, the One who gives his people strength and…peace!

Peace?  How does peace enter into all that earth-shaking and shattering?  Where is the peace in all the clammor of today’s constant arguing, partying, and killing?  Peace?

I cannot imagine anyone not wanting to live at peace, and in peace.  Of course this assumes people who are mentally healthy.  Anger, conflict, confrontation, and a general sense of in-your-face attitude are so alien to what my soul craves, it makes me cringe just to think about all that.  I don’t want to be around people who are at war, literally, or merely in their own minds; they spill-out bile and vengeance into their relationships.  There is little sense of peace or well-being there, or even just considering that picture.

I heard it said once that there are two types of people who are on the positive side of peace; there are peace-lovers, and there are peace-makers.  For me that’s too simple. 

Here’s what I mean:  Loving peace and making peace are as night and day different as passive and active.  Loving peace only requires an attitude – a desire to not have a fight going on.  Making peace sometimes (even often) requires the willingness to have a fight in order to end the fight.  Again, that’s too simple.

The complexity that enters this picture is when people who really aren’t in a healthy place enter the equation (people who are not sound of mind).  These are terrorist-seeds looking for a place to root.  Their literature claims peace as the motive for their “holy war” but goes no farther than throwing-off the blame for their warring ways on the higher power.  There is really not a desire for peace; there is only a lust for aggression.

So, how can you tell the difference between a really strong soldier whose target is peace, and a really strong terrorist who only craves the frenzy of war?  There are lots of variables in the answer to that question, such as the peace-making soldier who loses sight of peace being his target.  But my insides tell me the one true test is whether or not one is willing to trust.  Trust is the ability to lay-down the weapons and engage with words.  That is a first step in moving towards peace; without that first step, there is no chance to go anywhere but to the grave.

And isn’t that the crunch?  War and graves go hand in hand; only those who trust, people who are willing to lay down their anger, war and hurt are candidates for peace.  You need a quiet moment to hear the voice of the Lord.

For You Today

True peace lovers are also peace makers; and the other way around too.

Are there any weapons in your arsenal that need laying-down?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy Pixabay.com

Familiar Pain

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Wednesday, January 31, 2018

So they arrived at the other side of the lake, in the region of the Gerasenes.  When Jesus climbed out of the boat, a man possessed by an evil spirit came out from the tombs to meet him.  This man lived in the burial caves and could no longer be restrained, even with a chain.  Whenever he was put into chains and shackles—as he often was—he snapped the chains from his wrists and smashed the shackles.  No one was strong enough to subdue him.  Day and night he wandered among the burial caves and in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones.  When Jesus was still some distance away, the man saw him, ran to meet him, and bowed low before him.  With a shriek, he screamed, “Why are you interfering with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?  In the name of God, I beg you, don’t torture me!”  For Jesus had already said to the spirit, “Come out of the man, you evil spirit.”  Then Jesus demanded, “What is your name?”  And he replied, “My name is Legion, because there are many of us inside this man.”  Then the evil spirits begged him again and again not to send them to some distant place.  There happened to be a large herd of pigs feeding on the hillside nearby.  “Send us into those pigs,” the spirits begged.  “Let us enter them.”  So Jesus gave them permission.  The evil spirits came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the entire herd of about 2,000 pigs plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned in the water.  The herdsmen fled to the nearby town and the surrounding countryside, spreading the news as they ran.  People rushed out to see what had happened.  A crowd soon gathered around Jesus, and they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons.  He was sitting there fully clothed and perfectly sane, and they were all afraid.  Then those who had seen what happened told the others about the demon-possessed man and the pigs.  And the crowd began pleading with Jesus to go away and leave them alone.  As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him.  But Jesus said, “No, go home to your family, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.”  So the man started off to visit the Ten Towns of that region and began to proclaim the great things Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed at what he told them.  

Mark 5:1-20^(NLT)

The wild man could not be restrained; he broke every chain and smashed every shackle they tried.  He ran through the countryside, demons within screaming like an animal in pain.  He lived with the dead and terrorized the whole region.  Sounds pretty much like one of those zombie movies!

This man’s family, friends and the whole community had given up on the wild man.  “What a shame” they would whisper, shaking their heads.  “Yeah – he had such a bright future till all that evil spirit stuff got on him.”  “Can’t have him around town; all the children are scared to death of him; who knows what he’d do to the young women…and when the tourists get here…forget about business profits.”  “I know what you mean; if he can’t be normal it’s better that he lives out in the graveyard with the other wild animals…nobody can help him anymore.”

Then Jesus showed up.  The cost of saving this one man’s sanity was a herd of pigs.  The only problem with this approach to mental health care was that it was not his herd of pigs.  And when the people saw how Jesus had changed everything, and the cost of it, they wanted nothing to do with him; they pleaded:  please leave…quickly!

Often, in our churches, living rooms, hospital waiting rooms, and anywhere pain forces its way into our lives there are prayers lifted for healing.  When the pain hangs around for a while we pray harder.  When the pain just won’t leave us alone we do what we can to manage the assault.  For those who live in chronic pain, that daily dose of death becomes so familiar we can’t imagine life without it; our painful normal becomes that cross we must bear, running wild through our landscape, howling all over the countryside of our inner life.  The very thought of living pain-free, like the young, demon-possessed man who was healed, is a dream. 

Cutting to the quick here, let me offer that our world is stocked with people in pain.  And there is no shortage of people breaking the restraints our Creator intended for His creation in order to spread the pain around.  Shootings, mass-murder, bombings and in untold other ways the wild howling demons have their pain-inflicting influence on humanity.  We wonder if there is any hope for our world.

For You Today

Resolve that there is hope.  Scripture says that one man – Jesus – died for the sins of all.  It was that way with the wild man that day; Jesus drove out the evil, put him in his right mind, and the upshot was a lot of people got mad over it.  There is indeed hope for our world…but it’s never without letting go of the familiar pain we seem to love.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

Hagar's Legacy

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Wednesday, January 17, 2018

The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a spring of water in the wilderness, along the road to Shur.  The angel said to her, “Hagar, Sarai’s servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?”  “I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai,” she replied.  The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit to her authority.”  Then he added, “I will give you more descendants than you can count.”  And the angel also said, “You are now pregnant and will give birth to a son.  You are to name him Ishmael (which means ‘God hears’), for the Lord has heard your cry of distress.  This son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey!  He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him.  Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives.”  Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her.  She said, “You are the God who sees me.”  She also said, “Have I truly seen the One who sees me?”  So that well was named Beer-lahai-roi (which means “well of the Living One who sees me”).  It can still be found between Kadesh and Bered.  

Genesis 16:7-14^(NLT)

It’s foreign to our 21^st century Western culture, but being barren drove Sarai to have her husband Abraham take another wife, Hagar, Sarai’s slave/servant , and perhaps gain an heir to the family. 

Once pregnant, the slave girl became a thorn in Sarai’s pride.  She flaunted the treasure in her womb and it was just too much for Sarai, so she proceeded to work on driving a wedge between Hagar, Abraham and herself.  It worked, and Hagar was sent packing into the desert.  The Angel of the Lord found Hagar and in the ensuing conversation told Hagar her son, would be a wild man, untamed, and always ready to fight! 

The legacy of the union between Sarai’s servant girl, Hagar, and Sarai’s husband, Abraham is not much different than the rest of humanity:  anger, defiance, rebellion and violence against one another.  It’s hard to lay all the blame on Hagar’s back; after all, she was just continuing a family tradition that got started by humanity’s parents at that special tree in Eden. 

Hagar didn’t help with the problem much; neither did Sarai and Abraham.  Hagar shares one trait in common with her ancestor Adam, that peculiar bent towards denial.  If you noticed, the Angel of the Lord asked her from where she came, and to where she was headed.  Although she gives a factual answer (running away), it belies the greater truth of her beginnings.  Hagar had a pivotal role in this drama.  She had gotten a bad deal, something she hadn’t asked for; she had also acted with disdain and anger. 

It’s a subtle point, but the angel told her to name her child Ishmael, meaning God hears.  She did that, but notice she referred to the Lord as the one who sees me.  This seemingly diminutive perspective shift on Hagar’s part is like a 1° change in course as a ship starts out from San Francisco on a voyage to Tokyo.  If you’re off target just a smidge North it won’t make much of a difference passing the Golden Gate Bridge, but by the time you’ve gone 5,600 miles to Japan you won’t be in Tokyo, you’ll be 100 miles North in Iwaki. 

The point here is that humans have had a hard time staying on course in our relationships, both with God and each other.  It has to do with the beast within.  The legacy of Hagar’s wild, fighting, untamable son, Ishmael is constant strife, distrust, anger and war.

That’s quite a legacy!

For You Today

Hagar ran away from her problems to no particular place.  Hagar’s descendants wander still, and carry on the family tradition of Ishmael as they cannot abide peacefully with anyone.  By comparison, another Son came as the Prince of Peace.  Jesus ran TO our problems, and He has a place prepared for us that He’s been working on for quite some time…in perfect peace.  Which legacy will you prolong this day?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com

Melt-Down

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Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.  Hebrews 12:14^(NLT)

Just about everyone knows what a melt-down looks like.  There are varieties, such as the third grader who lost a race on the playground, or a high school athlete who just lost the year’s most important game.  There is the business agent who lost the big contract to competition.  There’s the bully who just got exposed as a fraud.

A melt-down is when everything comes unglued, and common sense becomes scarce.  It’s when irritability steps up its game to become white-hot, seething, foaming-at-the-mouth revenge-seeking anger!

The writer of Hebrews understood full-well that those who live a life filled with melt-down kind of anger are those who eventually find themselves alone.  Nobody likes to be around anyone who is perpetually melting-down.  In fact, Scripture condemns runaway anger as one of the seven deadly sins.  The writer goes so far as to say that kind of person will not see the Lord.

It’s that serious.

Unrestrained temper tantrums are becoming something of this new millennium’s hallmark.  Terrorist events, where dozens of people die, screaming matches in political events, road rage, and the dividing lines drawn in the sand by groups of all kinds, against other groups of all kinds…well, it seems to define what we’ve become; welcome to the 21^st century!

And, as disturbing and depressing as the sound of all that may be, the beat of the drum may have only begun.  Somewhere, perhaps far in the future, perhaps sooner than later, there is coming an ultimate melt-down.  That one is known as End Times, Armageddon, and Last Days.

Jesus taught his disciples that they should recognize the signs of the last days.  One of those signs is unchecked anger, where evil increases and the disdain of people for godliness becomes overwhelmingly gross.  I would call it a perpetual state of melt-down, gone way past the point of caring about God, to the point where nothing about God can be seen.  It’s where anger has blinded so many there is hardly a thought thrown towards goodness any more.

But Jesus also taught his disciples that they are salt and light to just such a generation. 

For You Today

Have you thought about the way you’ll be a light-bearer in this melt-down world?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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NOTES

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[i]  Title image: See page for author, via Wikimedia Commons

When Evil Speaks

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Wednesday, June 15, 2016

What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.  Isaiah 5:20^(NLT)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor during World War II, knew well the face of evil.  Living through a period when the unchecked power of Adolph Hitler saw the extermination of 6 million Jews, as well as the mercilessly callous treatment of all human life, including “medical” experiments on unsuspecting victims, war crimes, and the abuse of power beyond description, Bonhoeffer understood – it was not an option to be silent!  He spoke up when others did not, knowing that silence in the face of evil is, itself, evil.  Bonhoeffer spoke – but he also acted, joining (on at least one occasion) with others in an assassination plot to kill Hitler.  Eventually Hitler returned the favor, imprisoning and eventually executing Dietrich Bonhoeffer by hanging.

This past Sunday we awoke to yet another mass casualty event.  Wow, it is almost clinical and clean, neatly-organized, to use that phrase.  It’s somehow a little easier on the gut to categorize these terrorist killings as “events” – it makes it a tad more bearable to not say slaughter out loud.

But it’s still slaughter!

Ideology-aside, the act of spraying bullets into a crowd, executing indiscriminately and with intent is not just war; it’s not jihad; it’s not defending your beliefs and/or family – it is slaughter; it’s evil of the highest magnitude.

Beyond basic civics and history in high school I never took a political science course, so I know I’m not the right person to speak authoritatively on how governing bodies in our world ought to respond to this international wave of guerilla murder and terror.  I only know that hatred, spawned by evil intentions, has been going on since Cain lifted a rock behind Abel’s back.

And the blood still cries out to God from the ground.

And it makes me sick to think of the pain 50 families and the human community is struggling with today.

I still cannot wrap my head around the permission inside Omar Mateen’s head to repeatedly pull the trigger, snuffing out the God-given lives of those souls early Sunday morning. 

I don’t expect to understand it anytime soon.

I can only lift my eyes to heaven and repeat:

Lord, in your mercy;

Christ, in your mercy;

Hear our prayer, O God; humble our hearts…and help us to speak against this madness, lest we become silently evil.

For You Today

I have no neat one-line nugget of counsel for living the Christian life today.  I only offer my prayer for you that Christ will give you mercy to live courageously, speak courageously and, with courage, resist the presence and intention of evil in every form.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today…have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image: By Foto de Cristian Bortes ; edição de Eugenio Hansen, OFS [CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

After the Anger is Done

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Wednesday, March 30, 2016

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And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry,  

Ephesians 4:26^(NLT)

It’s hard….really hard to make sense of the immensity of anger we have seen played out on the world stage in recent years.  There seems to be no end in sight to the news cycles of suicide bombings, terrorist outbursts and hostage situations.  Of late, I pause before turning on the TV to catch the morning news, wondering if I really want to know.  And I turn it on anyway – anxiously wanting to know if another poor deluded soul has pulled the trigger on his detonator.

Growing up in the 1950’s the tempest of World War II and Korea were fading, but the practice drills of hiding under your school desk in the event of a Communist nuclear attack, and the looming specter of Vietnam, ensured you could never quite feel safe.

In the last three decades anger, and its accompanying violence, has moved into schoolyards, market places and seemingly never-ending rounds of blood-splatter on the nightly news.  And, as if watching the results of anger isn’t bad enough when displayed on our 60” TV screens, the current political debate features mirror images of anger and hatred with a kind of “civil terrorism” as Republicans and Democrats pick each other apart.

It’s Cain and Abel without end.

And this leaves me wondering – what happens after the anger?  Really – what happens after the anger is completely spent, and the violence has wreaked its vengeance, and jihad has toppled the Great Satan? 

What then?  To what end will we have come?  And is it really an end?

The theological answer of course, is “no” – it’s not an end, because every act of violence must have its accounting before God.  Nothing is really over until God has spoken.

No amount of killing one another is ever enough to completely satisfy human anger, lust, or greed, whether it is done on the battlefield, or in the board room.  And anger’s backwash of Occupy Wall Street, or Main Street, or blowing-up the train station is just anger on a higher scale of madness.  We are simply playing-out once again the days of Noah, where every person does what he or she wants.

Humankind has not learned much since the fiasco in the Garden of Eden; despite our Smartphones and space exploration, we are still rather inept at getting it, that God isn’t pleased with our anger and selfish ways.  To put it in the words of those highly-revered social commentators of the 1960’s, Sonny and Cher Bono, the beat goes on. 

And the person who has not learned to control his own anger runs the risk of adding to the beat never stopping:

Control your temper, for anger labels you a fool.  Ecclesiastes 7:9^(NLT)

The fact is we cannot do anything about other people’s anger, or their actions.  We can, however, trust in God and not be demoralized by what we see in a culture that is headed for destruction.

And we can love. 

Jesus said it in so many ways, but the one that speaks strongest to me this morning is this:

But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  1 John 4:8^(NLT)

And this:

“Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul.                 Matthew 10:28a^(NLT)

For You Today

Does the crisis news of the day make you angry?  Don’t let the sun go down on it; confront that anger – let God make your heart glad and peaceful.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today…and have a blessed day!

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[1] Title Image:  By Andrew A. Shenouda from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (It's the Holy Week!), via Wikimedia Commons